And now for a mask-free Easter!
It goes without saying that we are going to continue to take every precaution and do all that we can to keep everyone safe — but how wonderful that those who wish can now sing without a mask and can begin to enjoy again worship as it used to be!
Because our church is quite large and has some beautiful box pews, then those who wish to keep their distance and to wear masks can safely do that, while who wish to worship mask-free can do that as well!
As you will see from the list below, we have a busy programme of services for Easter — but this is only part of our offering for, in the evenings, following our service, there will be a programme of Biblical films exploring the Easter story. Some will be old favourites and some perhaps, ones which you may have forgotten about because they appeared once on television and then disappeared.
Of course, the coffee bar will be open during each evening and the beauty of our church is that it is always warm. The Coffee Bar is also always open on Wednesday mornings from 10.30 until 12 noon.
Why not make this an Easter which you devote to learning and worshipping? You will never be the same again!
Our Easter Programme
Sunday 10th. April at 10.30 a.m.
Palm Sunday Service.
We remember Jesus entering Jerusalem as a pilgrim, riding on a donkey.
Monday 11th. April at 6 p.m.
Service for Monday in Holy Week.
We remember the cleansing of the Temple by Jesus in Jerusalem.
Tuesday 12th. April at 6 p.m.
Service for Tuesday in Holy Week.
We remember a day of teaching in the Temple.
Wednesday 13th. April at 6 p.m.
Service for Wednesday in Holy Week.
We remember Jesus in quiet at Bethany while Judas prepares to betray Jesus.
Thursday 14th. April at 2 p.m.
A Service of the Stations of the Cross in the open air of our church yard.
Thursday 14th. April at 6 p.m.
Service for Maundy Thursday.
We remember Jesus sharing in his Last Supper with his disciples in the Upper Room.
Friday 15th. April at 6 p.m.
Service for Good Friday.
We remember the Passion of our Lord; his trial and his execution on the Cross.
Sunday 17th. April at 8 a.m.
A Service for Easter Day in the open air of our church yard, followed by breakfast in the church.
Sunday 17th. April at 10.30 a.m.
Easter Sunday Service of Holy Communion including the Ordination of new elders.
Our services are open to all and if you come to join us we promise you a very warm welcome.
What a beautiful world we live in!
We are so fortunate to live in this beautiful part of God’s world. That was a theme which came through a recent Presbytery conference held in Duns Parish Church.
As a result, as we reported in a previous newsletter, we decided to respond to the conference by creating a pilgrimage walk and a small chapel dedicated to telling the story of Saint Cuthbert who will have known our parish area well.
Work has now started on both of these projects and the first fifteen plaques can now be seen if you come to visit our church yard. Eventually there will be almost fifty plaques and these will tell the story of Saint Cuthbert and will include prayers, meditations and other thoughts to challenge our care of God’s world.
We hope that this pilgrimage walk will attract visitors to our church and will raise the profile of a Saint whom many people now only associate with his time in England — at Lindisfarne and later, after his death, with Durham. Of course, as know, his home was in Melrose and it was there that he started work as a shepherd, before the vision described on this plaque:
Meanwhile work has continued on our Saint Cuthbert’s Chapel.
Dave has wood-panelled the lower part of the walls — and has made a magnificent job of it. Rachel has painted the walls and ceiling a beautiful shade of duck blue and has added Celtic designs. The chapel is now ready for the prayer around the walls and the pictures of the life of Saint Cuthbert.
But work has now temporarily been halted because we are all working to create a home for a Ukrainian family. We have property available at Mount Pleasant and we have a splendid team of joiners and other workers within the congregation: so it is the obvious thing for us to do.
Making a Difference
No one reading this newsletter will need to be told that we are a tiny congregation in the smallest parish in Berwickshire. You would be excused for thinking that, small as we are, we would not be making much of a difference to the world in which we live.
We make more of a difference than you might think. In 2020, just before lockdown, twenty-eight of us visited the Holy Land and, while we were there, we visited the Jeel al Amal School in Bethany.
It’s a very poor (in financial terms) school in an area of great poverty, but as a school it never turns anyone away regardless of their religion or background (and that’s quite something where they are).
When we came home we sent money to buy some luxuries — you see the games they bought with our money in the picture. So far we have sent them £5,000 and we are committed to adding to this total each year.
Dr. Linus Malu is our Missionary partner. He is based in Malawi and there he works with folk who have no way of supporting themselves. Very often this is with women who have been abandoned by their husbands and who now have no way of supporting themselves or their children — but sometimes it can be men who have been abandoned by their wives.
Because the economy is so different from our own, Linus is able to set people up in small businesses of their own and each business can cost as little as £300 for something which is totally life-changing for those involved. Of course, Linus is there to provide on-going support.
In a recent letter, Linus told us that “sometimes the women make such a big success of their businesses that their husbands want to come back and re-join the family!” We have so far contributed to quite a few small businesses in Malawi and we aim to provide at least £2,000 a year to Linus for his amazing work.
The picture above shows our first consignment of medical equipment being loaded into a container for Ukraine.
Our first load of equipment was largely made up of responder first-aid kits but we are now gathering funds both to send directly to Ukraine and to support a family when they come to stay with us.
Of course, there are many other ways in which we help other people, many of which it would not be appropriate to include within our newsletter, but the message is clear: even a very small congregation in a very small parish can make a big difference to the folk in the world which we share. Next time you see the church as you pass by do remember all the love for others which is pouring from its doors!
From the Minister’s Desk
I want to tell you about the photograph you see here. The person with his camera photographing the view from Megiddo in Israel is Nael who was our guide when we visited the Holy Land early in 2022.
During the nearly two weeks that we were with Nael we saw so much. But, of course, in a limited time it is impossible to see everything; so now Nael is taking us on virtual tours of the Holy Land seeing all of the places we missed. Here he is showing us Megiddo, one of the most important sites in Old Testament times. Conscious that not everyone in our congregation was able to come to the Holy Land, Nael is now preparing a tour of Nazareth, where Jesus was born, for us all.
Isn’t technology wonderful? We can meet in our beautiful little church and share in a live tour of somewhere special with an expert guide just as people from all around the world can tune in and join us for our Sunday morning service and then we can keep in touch with them by email afterwards. Fantastic!
Tucked away at the back of the Newsletter
This is tucked away at the back because, while it may be of interest to our members, it really isn’t of much interest to other folk.. It’s what you might call our domestic business.
First, we are delighted to tell you that three new elders have been appointed: Molly Hodges, Alan Leighton and John Baird. They will be Ordained and Admitted to the Kirk Session on Easter Sunday (which will make Easter Sunday even more to be celebrated)!
Second, the Kirk Session received the accounts at a recent meeting. These show that last year even although we had all of the difficulties with lock-downs, we still ended the year with more money in our General Account than at the start of the year.
You will remember that when we all started together five years ago we didn’t even have two brass farthings to rub together (in fact we inherited a few bills).
Last year we spent a considerable amount of money on ensuring that our equipment to enable us to stream our services was as good as it could possibly be (and the result of that can be seen on our live-stream available through our web-site). We also continued our programme of improving the church — our new coffee bar as well as the glorious gifts of our Stations of the Cross and Christmas candle-holders.
But even having spent as much as we have, we have generated a surplus and have just under £50,000 in the bank (a little over £43,000 is what is left in our Mission Fund and £6,000 is available for general purposes). So we have done well.
In reality we are where we are because of the generosity of our members and, even although this is tucked away at the back of the Newsletter, it is important that you all know how much your generosity is appreciated.
Congregations exist to make the world into a better place for other people and together we shall certainly be able to do that during the remainder of the year and into the future.
But we shall be doing so much more besides. The regular Thursday evening film show will grow into something a little bigger. We are planning some meals together with speakers with something really interesting to say and we shall revisit our Mission and Education plans which were put on hold by the covid pandemic.